How to rock HC Merciless with 50 dps!

Do you leave the Explosive Arrow @ level 1?

No, Explosive Arrow's damage scales really well with levels (mine was level 17 with 371-556 base damage per charge) and after my passives and other buffs it ramped up to 1682 average fire damage per arrow per charge (remember we fire 3 arrows), and assuming we shoot five times and all arrows apply a stack to an enemy (so 3 enemies with 5 charges each), we get a huge aoe explosion of 25237 fire damage to all mobs in the area. Thats also the reason this build absolutely murders packs of mobs, but can't deal that great of a single target damage, except with bear traps.

So yes, level the gem up.

My last HC build was an explosive arrow marauder with high hp. Did PA before that, and that character was unstopable. THe EA char died because I loaded up charges on tons of mobs and then ele reflect aura mob came in.

Single target dps is awful with this build. I used elemental hit to compensate. Also swap to 1 hander for viper strike charges, solved a lot of problems with bosses.

It was pretty fun at first, but I always get bored of builds at some point.

D'you know if swapping to Redbeak whilst on low life affects charge damage? +100% damage when on Low Life.

Is Pierce as a support gem not useful?

pierce is terrible because the arrows shoot right through without setting a charge.

I run templar, QR,EA build and you will kill yourself in about 3 seconds if you try to run QR and LMP with blood magic

Best bet I think would be to drop bloodmagic and grab the 40% mana node where the templar starts. Even then you still need clarity, 50% mana regen on each ring and another 50% mana regen on your neck

I may eventually start my own thread on this under the Templar forums, but for now want to give feedback here as I leveled my own version of the build after receiving info from reflexii

Levels 1-21 Mostly Duel Strike with twinked high damage lowbie 1H weapons (pretty easy)
Levels 21-26 Little slower leveling, but I also was getting used to LMP + EA
Levels 27-29 Got Blood Magic and had hell for a few levels till I got nice Health Flaks
Levels 32-39 Ledge Farming
Levels 39-49 Rushed to Act 3 and Farmed Docks
Levels 49-50 Rushed Act 3 quests and only died 2 or 3 times

Pretty much a steam roll. . .
Should be obvious from OP's videos, but I was super under geared for most of it
99 was my Armor total for a long, long time with around 200-300 evasion

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Anyway my testimonial aside here's the mod to the build: (click me!)

That was me at level 50 with 4 skill points to spare

I noticed that upping attack speed was kind of a big deal
I don't have Attack speed rings or gloves yet, but I'm quite happy with the +15/+4 node/bandit

I also got a skill point on the first bandit quit. . . some speculation and disagreement though

Here's my gear at 49-50:



Anything I didn't show likely needs improvement

I am Twin Casting curses though and it's amazing!
You have enough time to cast both before EA pops so likely that ring will never go away

I'd like to talk a bit about possibly pushing this guy into a PvP setting

It's possible to get Unwavering Stance with my route, Bloodless, and Equalibrium without wasting too many points (Armor Master also gets honorable mention)

All you need to do is have Lightning and Cold damage somewhere on your person without any +fire and when you hit someone with single target EA their resist to fire will plummet 100%
Then you cast both curses and they explode implode!

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6 link ES could have Faster Attack, Concentrated Effect, Chance to Ignite, Fire Penetration, and Knockback

As an added kick to the jewels you could spec into the Marauder subtree to get Fending to increase your chance to Knockback by 15% and increase knockback distance by 45%

Opponents will be unable to leech mana / life from you, stun you, or evade

Obviously a lot to take in. . .

Oh before I forget here's endgame right now with my current plans to use him like a farmer

I really love this build and I just have 2 questions.

First question @MaximumSquid:

PoEwiki states that you just get -50% ele Resistances when hitting with Lightning and Cold at once. Could/did you try whether this is right or not? Could be quite interesting.



Second question could be a big improvement to the build. Since you have a 1-second window with EA, couldn't you just swap to another weaponset with lots of Elemental damage after you stacked your EA charges? Wouldn't that increase your Explosion damage by quite a lot.

esk213:

The skill says a temporary +25% and -50% (if you hit with all 3 then nothing happens)
I don't know how long the duration is, but it should set Ice / Lightning to -25% and fire to -100%

Needs testing obviously, but probably wouldn't be hard to test

Weapon Swapping could be better than casting 2 curses or could be a nice addition
It would also prevent players from just using "Remove Curse" Flasks

Bigger question would be if there is a basement cap on -Resist

I already use weapon swapping to activate leap and molten shield so I'm already used to it
As I'm now farming Merciless Ledge I'll keep my eye open for Scepters with + Fire %

That way I can test if the fire damage works when you swap or if it has to be applied at the time of the shot

MaximumSquid:

Yeah, sure that's what the skill states. That's why I asked whether you know if it's really -100% since the wiki-page states something else. Would be nice to hear from you after your tests =)

Btw are you playing SC or HC, because you mentioned deaths in Act3.